Pesach: The Four Cups of Wine - Rabbi Reuven Lauffer

[Music] yesterday we we finish up the air of Pesach and now we're looking at on Pesach night we've got niches of of wine and four cups of wine and let's just have a look and see a few of our lockers that we've got over there so first of all it's a it's a field it's an obligation on every man and woman over the age of Baron but indeed so to drink four cups of wine on Pesach on say tonight and not just a drink four cups of wine but to drink them according to the order that they appear inside of the Haggadah which means our the first cup of wine is we announce Kadesh and we go through the 15 steps of the Haggadah and then we and then we make kiddush and over kiddush we're going to drink the first cup of wine and that's the way that it needs to be done children under the age of Bar and Bat Mitzvah so if they are of the age of what's called clinically the age of education which again it's a little a little vague you know five six seven whatever it might be they should be given four cups of wine as well if you're over the age of if you're within the age of Kimmel which is education then you should be having a glass of wine or press a glass of grape juice might be better for the children if it's a sham we'll talk we'll talk about that but you know whether it's okay to use grape juice or it has to be wine we'll get there it's a shame but in the meantime how much you have to drink her of the esaron this is a particular volume of wine the question is how much is that there is of course a mark locust as a disagreement amongst various authorities about how much constitutes what is going to be envious now some of the cups of wine that we're going to drink on Pesach I'm going to be water called deal writer so they are biblical obligations to drink and for them we're going to be a little bit more stringent than we are for the durán bonnet the larger amount that the eraser amount which is a Torah obligation is going to be four and a half ounces of liquid one hundred a hundred and forty let's say that's a hundred and forty eight milliliters so that would be to put it into something that we can relate to that would be just under half of a can of soda Hannah Soto is 330 milliliters right Oso weeks mixing with water is a little bit of a problem because it might be a problem with the halacha whether you can make more PR geffen over it but what you can do is that you can use wine which has got a very minimal alcohol content so for example things like things like Moscato wines have got maybe 4% 5% it's it's you know that that's doable if you want you can use graduates or talk about you can use grape juice as well if you want it's an oven right that would be it would be better preferable to use mitts on event than to use and to use water down wine grape juice but pure pure grape juice the figures I just given you are according to moshe feinstein there are basically three egg three sort of standards for measuring volumes there is Ralph I'm know who is the most lenient so his numbers are always a smallest there's a puzzle issue which is the most the biggest numbers he's the most stringent and the Rebbe moshe fashion is kind of in the middle somewhere alright so the number that i just gave you Rav Moshe functions numbers so here we've got the the cups of wine that we drink on say tonight at dura Bonin's they're coming from the rabinin from the rabbi's they're not coming from the Torah the obligation therefore we can use the smaller number right 3.3 fluid ounces which was what how much think 100 whatever around around the hunter it's just say around the hundred right you can use a smaller number but because this year say tonight is going to be on Friday night and the kiddush on Friday night is definitely a deal right so that's definitely a Torah obligation that means that for the first cup of wine that we're going to drink everyone should be more stringent and they should use a larger figure a four and a half rather than the figure of three point three which they can use for the other three that come afterwards if you want if you want to be stringent upon yourself so it's it's a it's it's a good thing to do and like thank the rabbi say to violet and Brock I you'll get out you'll be blessed for doing it if you can if you can drink the Lord renowned for all four other cups of wine that would be the best thing to do right but again you don't have to the first cup of wine you do the other three if it's a problem then you don't have to what what kind of wine should you be using so first of all it's best to use red wine right why is that because red wine is considered to be more than the shabak the gemara says that it's considered to be highly same issue but more more cautious yeah well it's more important red wine is again I don't know very much about wine that I do I have noticed that people who are you know wine connoisseurs tend to prefer red wine red wine seems to have a much larger much larger following it's got a much larger Terra behind it as well of everybody you know talking about these things the Gemara says that the red wine is the best thing to use Lamesa like this for many years I don't I don't I try to use wine on Pesach I'm not very keen on wine so I used to use mosque after the probably Moscato is that it's it's white and it comes from Muscat grapes so what I used to do was take white Moscato wine and add a little bit of red wine into it as well just to give it the color in order that it should have a dinner being red wine just to fulfill the the midst of drinking red wine interestingly enough there are communities where they don't use red wine that only is white wine on purpose only use white wine because part of the problem of red wine was that if you know your Jewish history over the years it was a cause of the blood libels the idea of red wine that it was blood and very very often in Christian areas of Europe it caused all kinds of terrible pogroms to take place and all kinds of libels take place so they're making the blood to make matters and they thought these cups of wine that they were using was leftover blood even though the whole thing is ridiculous I mean completely really cuts on top of everything else the matzo never looks redder on top of everything else the matzo is the only food that we have in the year that you can't add anything into it which means I understand if you want to come and say if there was a mid-foot a drink borscht right which is which is made out of beets so I can understand well that must be blood right it looks like blood if you ask me it tastes like blood as well but that's just my personal opinion I'm not a big fan of board add some sour cream that tastes pretty good only only do you like sour cream this is for you know a little bit of nostalgia rather honinbo sermon one of the great rabbis of the Holocaust era he was the foremost student of the coffin sky him he explained that this how can it be that something is absurd as the blood libel how can it be that it exists you know it's still around it's the most astonishing thing it really is maybe I understand the back of the superstitious very evil times so people believe whatever they wanted to believe they believed complete completely idiotic physicals of Zion right it's one it's one it's one of the biggest sellers in the in the Middle East straighten the protocols of Zion I read I read a book by by a retired Israeli judge called the lie that wouldn't die like the protocols of Zion it's something which is again it's so completely absurd and yet people believe whatever they want to believe and and the blood libel is still around it's still with us today it's incredible huh first of all the the concept of the blood libel keeps appearing the last full-blown blood libel if my memory serves me correct was in 1978 with a withered with a dead body and everything dead a dead Christian child somewhere in what used to be the USSR I can't account I can't remember where it was but it was like it's astonishing you know 1978 isn't such a long time ago and yet this is what people want to believe says no more kind of a sermon how can it be that the blood libel is something which exists until today and people still believe these things so he said that the original blood libel was the libel that Joseph's brothers when they came out what did they do they took his clothing right they swim in a pit and they took his codes and they dipped it into goat's blood and then took it back to Jacob and told him here who does this belong to and rather honor us and it says that that that was the original blood libel the first one and that laid down the foundations to be able to use the same claim in other formats and he said that's why this ridiculous thing is still around in all events there are communities that only use white wine on pizza deliberately because they would stay away from using anything that had any kind of red color in it so that they wouldn't be able to give ammunition to anybody I know what we're able to say oh look they're drinking they're drinking blood again it's less it's less sex and more to do with where where people came from which means if there was a particular place where Bibles were prevalent they were there the whole thing that I had to deal with these things often then the rabbi's write the halacha cthe or ities at a time what made a ruling that you shouldn't you don't use red wine I only use white wine instead don't don't do anything that's going to allow someone to misunderstand or misrepresent what it is that you're doing right so it's got a lot less to do with with you know which particular I don't know Hasidic sect you belong to or which particular Ashkenazi sect you belong to and a lot more to do with what was happening in your location at any one particular time it in all events can you use grape juice you can use grape juice from what advice one of the biggest halat Inca thora teas alive today said that great juice 100% pure grape juice is can be used for every single requirement that needs wine inside of her locker except for on Puran I mean it doesn't get you it doesn't get you drunk right no you know what and I should diabetic you drink enough great juice if you thought I'd better go have the same kind of an effect but the visor so I'm pour it on pace out he says you know people lots of people don't they just don't enjoy wine enough to want to drink four cups of wine I've got I've had people at my Seder they'll drink the first cup of wine they'll use they'll use wine for the first cup after that I'll switch over to grape juice whatever whatever you want to do absolutely fine there is a minion according to some illogical authorities there isn't in you that maybe it would be correct to have some wine inside of what you're drinking again robust advice says you don't have to which means if you don't like wine you don't have to have it there it's all not from the beginning and not for anything but some Iraqi authorities say that maybe it would be better and if that's the case then you can have grape juice with a little bit of wine inside of it and it will give a little just a slight taste than the grape juice and that should be fine women and children for sure there's no question whatsoever they can use grape juice if that's what they prefer to do children should be given grape juice it's a I personally I think it's incorrect to give children wine I think it's wrong to you know that they should be brought up having a taste for this stuff wine is you know alcohol is not it's not a terribly healthy thing of course in moderation it's good but I don't think it's something that little children should be taught how to drink you know from an early age so you want to wait let them learn about this stuff a little bit later on that would make think it would make more sense and for sure they can use they can use grape juice if your custom is to use red wine and not white wine but the white wine that you have is better quality than the red wine then you should use the white wine right because again what's the idea the idea over here is that when it's not just the idea of drinking wine we should be enjoying what we're doing right it should be add adding what's called Simchat yontiff to what's going on it should be enhancing our pleasure and our joy the mission Brewer says interestingly enough even though the Guevarra says that red wine is something which is more caution with something which is more important nevertheless Alicia Brewers says that the red wine is also reminiscent of all the blood that was spilt in Egypt I think I think it's possible perhaps to you know to extrapolate that and say so you know representative of the blood that was spilled Jewish blood that was spilled throughout the generations yeah no problem all types of wine are absolutely ok so if you prefer sweet wine you could drink sweet wine if you prefer dry wine you can use dry wine if you prefer you know a mix a mix of to whatever whatever is good for you what was it shot over the channel here is we're not it's not Purim we're not supposed to be getting drunk right so any wine that's gonna make you drunk is not wine that you should be treating on Pesach night you know if you drink four cups of wine one after the other for sure it's going to make you tipsy however it is true that the cups of wine that we drink and normally spread out over quite a long period of time so what depends write that so you can you know hopefully the effect is not going to be too bad again if you if that's how you're feeling though you should switch to grape juice right it's not it's not correct huh or a mixture whatever's going to be good for you but it's not it's not correct to get drunk on Pesach night yeah it's not going to enhance the the simplest yontiff at all with regards to coloring the wine and I told you before that that you know some people I used to do this as well take white wine and to add some red wine to make sure it's got that red color there is a slight problem over here with something called so there which is coloring your not a lot of color things especially this year when a stuff is going to fall out on shovers say tonight's gonna be on Chavez it's a problem so what are you supposed to do so rather than putting the white wine and then add the red wine which is going to color the white wine red you should put in the red wine first and then add the white one all you're doing then is you're diluting the color it's remaining red it's just becoming less red than it was and that's not a problem the other way round it could be a problem so one one one last one last hollow car over here even though we spoke about the idea of what the minimum amount of wine is that you're supposed to be drinking so whatever it is whether it whether it's whether we say three three and a half fluid at three point three four ounces or four and a half fluid answers whatever it is nevertheless there is an onion that you should drink the majority of the cup that you're using to drink your wine in so I would recommend that you don't don't use an enormous cup however much you like wine it's not a good it's not a good idea so you gotta have a minimum amount yeah but both most the silver silver' better than it used most silver cups that are used on Pesach gonna be for sure much larger than the minimum amount and just you know whatever you use use your common sense which hopefully you have at the beginning of the evening evening you don't have it by the time you're drunk four cups of wine right that hopefully it will be there so in a person in a person having trouble you know a person really has trouble drinking these things for whatever the reasons then he should you should deliberately use a smaller cup rather than a larger one you know I have a cousin for example who is diabetic and it's it's not so simple to drink that kind of amount so he used his special wine that that has got a minimum a minimum sugar content inside of it but nevertheless you know when you're drinking that much and it might not be so healthy to do that so he's careful to use the smallest size cup that he can use in order to be able to fulfill the mitzvot completely right but without having to have more than that good okay you know that great though I mean the bottom line is don't you know the cost shal LEL Elijah's cup which is that great big cup that gets filled up whichever is lesser we'll talk about but that's not the kind of thing you should be using for drinking your cups of wine leave that up to LEL right he needs to drink that you know to be able to get to where he's going to so yes I drink a lot of those in order to be able to fly around and to get to everybody's Seder [Music]